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Tuesday, January 14, 1913:Haven’t spent much time on my studies this evening. At present I am waiting for Ruth to get through with a paper so I can read it.

Alexei Nikolaevich, Heir to the Russian Throne (Source: Wikipedia)

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

What was in the headlines a hundred years ago today? I’m not sure what was in the newspaper that Grandma and her sister Ruth were reading, but I was surprised to discover that the New York Times had an article about the son of Russian Tsar Nicholas II.

Whew, a hundred years ago Russia was still ruled by a Tsar! Grandma was writing before the beginning of the Soviet Union . . . and before the Russian Revolution.

After being present at the Christmas festivities of the garrison at the palace of Tsarskoe Selo, the Czarevitch, who was mysteriously ill in the autumn is again confined to his bed.

The Dowager Empress, who has been suffering from lumbago, is obliged to keep to her bed.

Owing to the unfavorable impression caused by the cancellation of the New Year’s reception, which was to have been held at the Winter Palace today, the Czar with receive the Diplomatic Corps at the palace of Tsarskoe Selo.

New York Times (January 14, 1913)

Alexei, the oldest son of the Tsar had hemophilia –and that’s probably why he was ill a hundred years ago today. His mother Alexandra believed that a monk named Rasputin was the only person who knew how to cure him. As a result Rasputin became extremely powerful. This was seen as scandalous by many in Russia, and helped bring about the Russian Revolution and the end of the Tsars.

Excellent! It’s great that you incorporated what was going on in another part of the world to give us all a better time frame of what 100 years ago really means in terms of history. Who would have thought that those characters from songs and movies were alive so recently, at the same time as our grandparents, or, in my case, great-grandparents.

When I was in school we studied the founding of the Soviet Union in a history class. It seemed like it had happened eons ago. I now realize that my grandparents probably could remember when it happened. I now wish that I’d thought to ask them about it.

I remember a movie with a mad Rasputin creeping around and popping up before the Czar and all his family, including the poor little prince were taken out and shot. I guess they were shot. Killed at any rate.

Hello

I look forward to sharing my grandmother's diary with relatives and friends. Helena Muffly (Swartz) kept a diary from 1911-1914. She was 15 years old when she began this diary. I plan to post these entries one day at a time—exactly 100 years after she wrote them. I hope you enjoy this glimpse back to a slower paced time.

The header is a picture of the farm where my grandmother lived when she wrote this diary. It is located in Northumberland County in central Pennsyvlania about a mile outside of McEwenvsille. My father said that the buildings look similar to what they looked like when he was a child.